Search form

Ice Cave (KH)

Views

Ice Cave (KH)

Iceland is, among other things, famous for its many majestic glaciers. Langjökull, Iceland’s second-largest icecap located in the western highlands, is currently being outfitted with a large tunnel. Yes, an ice tunnel, or artificial cave, rather.

The IceCave project kicked off with drilling in spring 2014 and will open in 2015 if everything goes as planned. IceCave will be open for visitors every year from March to October.

According to the project’s website the IceCave will consist of two parts: the main tunnel with many small caves serving as exhibition spaces for ice sculptures, a chapel for weddings, a small restaurant and more, as well as a service tunnel used for ventilation, emergency exits etc. The service tunnel will also be used to channel all melt-water away.

The tunnel will stretch about 200-300 meters (660-980 feet) into the ice, at about 30 meters below the surface and will be able to accommodate up to 40 guests at the same time.

The thought of being about 30 meters under the surface of a solid glacier is thrilling and scary at the same time, I have to admit.

The entrance of the tunnel is 1,200 meters above sea-level and the entrance leads deep down where one can marvel at century-old ice masses.

“As you go deeper, the ice gets older and the color changes from white to deep-blue. You will see crevasses stretching deep into the glacier and how the sunlight squeezes its way through packed ice,” promises IceCave’s website.

It was just a question of time until someone would make the insides of a glacier accessible to visitors—I mean, this country is called ‘ICE-land.’

It might seem like any other tourist attraction at first, but the photos look pretty amazing and I’m getting really excited about this gigantic project. If done the right way, this could be a really cool (pun intended) enterprise.

Make sure to check out the IceCave’s website for more details. Here is a short clip about what it will look like inside the tunnel will.

IceCave appears to be an interesting, ambitious and very beautiful project and appealing, not only to foreign visitors, but also Icelanders.

I would definitely pay it a visit—as long as they don’t put up one of those terrible tourist puffin shops there…